BASIL'S VIOLIN
"Thank you so much for telling me about it. I am pleased, for it is just what I wanted to hear of."
"And I am so glad for Herr Wildermann's sake. It rarely happens in this world that one hears of a want and a supply at the same time;" and the speaker, laughing as she said the last words, shook hands once again with her hostess and left her.
Lady Iltyd went to the window,—a low one, leading on to the garden, and looked out. Then she opened it and called out clearly, though not very loudly—
"Basil, Basi—i—il, are you there, my boy?"
"Yes, mother; I'm coming." And from among the bushes, at a very short distance, there emerged a rather comical little figure. A boy of eight or nine, with a bright rosy face and short dark hair. Over his sailor suit he had a brown holland blouse, which once, doubtless, had been clean, but was certainly so no longer. It stuck out rather bunchily behind, owing to the large collar and handkerchief worn beneath, and as the child was of a sturdy make to begin with, and was extra flushed with his exertions, it was no wonder that his mother stopped in what she was going to say to laugh heartily at her little boy.
"You look like a gnome, Basil," she said. "What have you been doing to make yourself so hot and dirty?"
"Transplanting, mother. It's nearly done. I've taken a lot of the little wood plants that I have in my garden and put them down here among the big shrubs, where it's cool and damp. It was too dry and sunny for them in my garden, Andrew says. They're used to the nice, shady, damp sort of places in the wood, you see, mother."